Fresh Kills (29 page)

“So your cousin, or whatever she is, calls you out of the blue. When?”

“It must have been like, a week ago, ten days, something like that. Around then,” said Rhonda.

“Go on, so Gorbachev calls.”

“Yeah, she calls and says her husband disappeared. Someone came in the house and tried to rob them in the middle of the night, and the husband, what was his name, Al Leporello, something like that, chased the asshole down the street and then disappeared. She was a little hysterical, so I asked Sonny and he asked you.”

“Laporello,” Sonny said, wandering into the kitchen. “Laporello, honey, Leporello is a character in
Don Giovanni
, an opera by Mozart, libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte. Did you know da Ponte was the first professor of Italian up at Columbia University?”

“I know what that is, asshole, I know about Mozart,” Rhonda said, kissing him.

In dark green shorts and a white polo shirt, Lippert sat down, looked at the TV, then back at me.

“What's going on?” he said.

“Artie wanted to know how come Vera Gorbachev called me,” Rhonda said.

“Yeah, go on.” Sonny took Rhonda's hand and saw that I noticed him doing it.

“Fuck you,” he said under his breath, but he was smiling.

Rhonda shifted her chair closer to Sonny's, and said, “So Vera calls me, and she says, I need some help. I don't know anyone who speaks Russian out here.”

“Did Vera know that Sonny was connected to a Russian speaker?”

“Yes,” Rhonda said. “I could tell she knew about you, she didn't say it by name, but who the hell else could it be, she said, your husband's guy, the Russian who works for him regular.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Like I said, it didn't seem important. I just asked Sonny if you would give her an hour, no big deal. I felt guilty. I should have called to say so. I put it off on you, Artie, and I'm sorry.”

Rhonda started taking platters of food out of the fridge and I sat on the edge of a kitchen chair. Couldn't get comfortable. Pain from the beating I took still ran around my body.

Sonny's new interest in food meant he practically rubbed his hands together watching Rhonda fix the food. She sliced bagels into three perfect slices – she said she had read Mel Brooks sliced his bagels in three and it was better like that – and toasted them. She fixed sandwiches from tongue, which Sonny loved, handed one to me and another to Sonny and made one for herself.

“Listen to me.” I leaned over the table towards Lippert. “Listen to me. I need help. I need to know who wanted me in the Laporello thing. Just help me, OK?”

“Yes, like I said, I'm sure they knew it was you,” Rhonda said. “There's nobody else Sonny knows well that speaks good Russian. She must have known, but loads of people know you two are friends.”

For years Lippert told people he had invented me, that he talent-spotted me when I was a rookie and noticed I could speak some languages, and had an education. He told people and I hated it, him making out like I was his creature. Worse, he made me understand that I owed him something, some kind of fealty. I probably did, and maybe that's what rubbed me the wrong way. I got over it, though. Everyone knew we were tied together. Even Vera Gorbachev knew.

“Vera Gorbachev needed a Russian speaker so bad that she called you, a distant relative she hardly knows at all, right, and she asks you to ask your big-deal husband to send one of his guys she knows is a Russian speaker, which means me, right?”

“Yeah, go on,” Rhonda said.

“How the hell did she tell you all this in English? You speak Russian, Rhonda?”

“I don't speak Russian.”

“How did she talk to you?”

“She knew enough English.”

“You got the feeling she knew more than she let on?”

“Yeah, now I think of it,” Rhonda said. “Her accent was heavy but she could talk English pretty good. Jeez, you're right, Artie. She's been here a long time, she had a job, I mean, how the hell did she manage?”

“It didn't bother you at the time?”

“I figured she wanted someone she could really communicate with, or maybe she was lonely for somebody from home. I don't know, Artie. I didn't think about it a lot.”

Sonny said, “Let's go on the balcony for a smoke.”

“I don't have much time.”

I followed Sonny into the other room. Rhonda stayed where she was in front of the TV set, watching the game.

We stood on Sonny's balcony and smoked and looked at the river.

“You were making Rhonda feel pretty lousy,” Sonny said. “It was like you were interrogating her, man.”

“I had to know why Vera Gorbachev got Rhonda to get you to send me over to see her. I had to know if it was accidental or not.”

“Go on,” Sonny said.

“You still think there's a connection between your dead girl, and those old cases? Including May Luca?”

“You want me to run the details by you? It's DNA stuff, we got some stuff off the little girl that died in Jersey – her name is Ruthie Kelly, little Irish kid – that looks like a match for some of what we found on May Luca. I didn't bother you with the details, shit like that, because I wasn't asking you to work it, only to help me on the dolls thing and maybe ask Billy if he remembered May Luca.”

“I don't need the details, I believe you.” I said. “I'll ask Billy tonight. You remember Stan Shank?”

“Heshey Shank's brother?”

“Half brother.”

I told Lippert what I knew about Stan Shank.

“I like that,” said Sonny. “I like that it fits. Fuck. I like Shank's prints being on the dolls. Ruthie Kelly had her doll with her when she was murdered; I showed you that, right? I'm already checking it against the dolls in Chinatown. I'm impressed, man.”

“Thanks.”

“Maybe it's time you came back to work for me,” he said, getting up.

“I have to go, Sonny.”

“Billy Farone still with you?”

“Why?”

“I'm just thinking, while Shank is still out there, is Billy safe?”

“It's what I've been thinking.”

“Artie, man, I'm beginning to think you have to take the boy back to Florida. Keep him safe. Shank sounds like he could be some kind of serial nut.”

“Then pick him up.”

“I'm trying, man, I'm on it,” said Sonny. “But keep it in mind, what I just told you.”

“How soon you think you can pick Shank up?”

“Next forty-eight hours, I'm hoping.” Sonny already had his phone in his hand. “I want the bastard fast.”

“Shank likes big fishing knives,” I said. “That help at all?”

Sonny sat up. “Yeah, man, you fucking bet it helps. Let me get on the phone.”

I didn't have forty-eight hours. It was Friday night. Stanley Shank was out hunting Billy, or finding new ways to set him up. Maxine was coming home Sunday. I couldn't keep Billy locked up in my loft. Even if Johnny and Genia made it back before that, Genia was so febrile I didn't know how she'd cope with her kid.

Billy would hate me. It would be a betrayal. I knew I might have to trick him to get him on a plane. I didn't want him thinking about May Luca, I didn't want him sinking into the past. Most of all, I wanted him safe and I couldn't take care of him that way in New York now.

“Hold it. Hey!” A kid wearing a greasy yellow slicker held up his hand as soon as I got out of my car. He pulled at his scruffy goatee. “Just wait right there.” Behind him movie extras were attacking a table piled with food like locusts.

My block was jammed. From the number of vehicles stretching around the corner and the gangs of people, you could tell it was a big movie. Some of the crew were holding golf umbrellas. Didn't notice they were making the street impassable. Didn't care. Monster lights almost a story high lit up the dark night, sky the color of damp slate. Screens made of white and silver fabric reflected the light and the rain, which came down in slanted sheets, made it feel apocalyptic.

Vehicles with dressing rooms lined the side of the street opposite my building. A generator in a truck whirred noisily and it would go on all night. More trucks spilled rigging equipment. Fat teamsters sat around eating Danish and apple turnovers between meals. Thick coils of electric wire snaked along the curb. Extras crowded in doorways, trying to keep dry.

I looked up at my building. There were lights on in my
windows. Again I tried crossing the street when a second kid tried to stop me.

“We're filming,” he said. Like most film sets, the self-importance was heavy as the humidity.

I kept myself from pushing the kid out of my way. I showed him my badge and told him to move. I wasn't in the mood for his attitude.

“Which show you working on?” said the kid who couldn't conceive of life outside movies. Lucky for him that, before I answered, a cop in uniform came over and asked if I needed anything. Then I noticed that Mike Rizzi's coffee shop was shut up tight as a drum, the metal gate pulled down over the door and I wondered what time he left.

In my building I hit the elevator button. Come on. Come on!

Rizzi was supposed to keep an eye on Billy and he had gone home. I couldn't wait. I bolted for the stairs, took them two at a time up four flights. There were scratches on the wood frame of my door but I couldn't tell for sure if they were new or not; one of the lights in the hall was out and it was hard to see. I unlocked the door. My key jammed like it always did when I was in a hurry. Come on!

“Billy?”

He didn't answer.

“You there, Billy?”

The lights were on. The TV was on.

“I'm over here, Artie,” Billy said, getting up from the floor and standing and yawning. “I didn't hear you come in. The TV was too loud. I was watching the news.”

On the screen was a picture of the suicide bombers in London; the youngest had been only eighteen. On the floor where Billy had been sitting was the framed picture of my father, which I kept on my desk.

“Did you eat?”

“I found some cookies and a piece of cheese,” Billy said, sitting down again in front of the TV.

I sat next to him. “I need to talk to you.”

Billy picked up the photograph of my father he had taken from my desk.

“What was he like?” Billy said.

“My dad?”

“Yes.”

“You look a lot like him,” I said. “You really do.”

“Like you,” he said. “We all look like each other,” Billy said. “Like real family. Tell me some stuff about him, Artie. I want to know.”

“Let's talk about that later,” I said. “Tell me what's been going on.”

Billy's attention slipped away. He turned towards the TV.

“Can I just finish watching this?” he said. “Is that OK?” He leaned his head against my shoulder briefly, then, as if embarrassed, pulled his knees up under him and rested his chin on them, gazing at the television. I didn't mention the scratches on the front door. I couldn't find a way to tell him we had to leave New York.

Sitting with his back to my old couch, surrounded by his books and some newspapers and photographs, a couple of empty Soda cans and an empty package of Malomars, a box of Ritz crackers, a plate with cheese rinds, he looked as if he had made a nest for himself.

I couldn't tell him and I couldn't tell anyone else, except his parents, and I wasn't even sure about them. Johnny Farone was a good sweet man who loved his kid, no question, but the Farone family was tied up with the Shanks and maybe, through them, with Al Laporello on Staten Island.

I got up and turned out the lights except for a lamp on the table beside the couch, and sat down again.

“Why did you do that?”

“Easier to watch TV,” I said.

Truth was I felt it made us less of a target, my lights being off. Crazy stuff was running through my head as I listened for unfamiliar noises in the building. With the movie people in the street yelling to each other and their generators grinding, it was hard to tell where sounds came from.

I felt trapped. The building seemed surrounded. My paranoia made me hot. Sooner or later, I'd have to get us out. At least we were together, Billy and me.

Inside the building all I heard was the bass turned up loud on some crap heavy metal music from downstairs, and a dog somewhere, and the clank of an air conditioner and a toilet running.

Billy put on a sports show, a gabfest, a bunch of ex-athletes dishing about current players taking steroids. I got up again, and wandered into the other room. The place I loved felt like a prison.

It was the only place I had ever owned in my life. Before it, before I saved up the down payment, I had lived in rentals around Chinatown, and one in Brooklyn. When I was growing up in Moscow, we lived in a cramped two-room apartment near the Arbat. We were lucky: it was central and it had a bathroom, but it wasn't ours.

So who owned your family apartment in Moscow, a friend once asked, which made me laugh. No one, I'd say. The State owned it, I'd say to uncomprehending friends. It didn't matter. The whole Commie enterprise had disappeared. It was off the map. All gone. Communism was a theme park for tourists: in Beijing people bought painted statuettes of Mao and his wife drinking tea; in Germany, people lined up for vintage clothing and furniture made by old East German companies; revolutionary posters from Cuba or the USSR sold at auction for big bucks. I went to the kitchen and got some Percoset.

“Artie?”

In the living room I sat down next to Billy again.

“What's going to happen?” he said.

“It'll be OK.”

“Don't leave me again.”

“I won't. Maybe I shouldn't have brought you here, there's always some shit going down in my life,” I said to him. “It's nothing to do with you,” I added, but he knew I was lying. “Did anything happen while I was out?”